LESSON 4
April 21-27
letteRs fRom Jesus
"Thirty miles southeast of Thyatira
lay Sardis, one of the oldest and most
storied cities in Asia Minor. .. . Sardis'
greatest advantage was that it was the
center of a knot of five different roads.
One road led northwest to Thyatira and
then on to Pergamos; another ran west
to Smyrna, fifty-four miles away; another
ran east and out to Phrygia; another ran
southeast to Philadelphia and then on
to the towns of the Maeander Valley;
another led southwest to Ephesus, sixty-
three miles away.. ..
"Sardis had been the ancient capital
of the kingdom of Lydia, and away back
in 560 B.C. Croesus, whose name has
become a proverb for wealth, was its
king. It is of interest to note that the
first coinage ever to be minted in Asia
Minor was minted in Sardis in the days
of Croesus. . . . Sardis was the place
where modern money was born."—Wil-
liam Barclay,
Letters to the Seven
Churches,
pages 68, 69.
"Philadelphia commanded one of the
greatest highways in the world, the
highway which led from Europe to the
East. Philadelphia was the gateway
from one continent to another. . . .
"Further, it was an area rich in hot
springs; and Philadelphia was, and still
is, a center to which the infirm came to
bathe in the medicinal waters. The prod-
ucts of Philadelphia's prosperity went
out to the ends of the earth, and into it
there came people from many a land in
the search for health and healing."—
William Barclay,
Letters to the Seven
Churches,
pages 79-81.
The congregation in Philadelphia was
in a most advantageous position to
spread the message of the free grace
of Jesus Christ to men of all nations.
The counsel to these members was that
they needed to be wide-awake to their
opportunities of witness and particu-
larly to the opening providences of God.
The Sardis church represents the
church in Reformation times. The Ref-
ormation is usually regarded as begin-
ning in 1517. The closing date of the
period would then be determined by
the appropriate date to assign to the
beginning of the Philadelphia period.
The second advent awakening stands
as the mark of the Philadelphia period.
A precise date to divide these two pe-
riods is quite elusive, but 1798 has the
advantage of marking the close of a pe-
riod of Biblical prophecy and also of
being near to the beginning of the nine-
teenth century during which the advent
awakening occurred. Thus the approxi-
mate dates for the two churches are:
Sardis, 1517-1798; Philadelphia, 1798-
1844.
LESSON OUTLINE
1.
Sardis I, Rev. 3:1
2.
Sardis II, Rev. 3:2, 3
3.
Sardis III, Rev. 3:4-6
4.
Philadelphia I, Rev. 3:7, 8
5.
Philadelphia II, Rev. 3:9-13
6.
Philadelphia III